Tissue & Biospecimen Banking Facility

Brain Tissue Bank

The Goizueta Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center (ADRC) maintains an active brain bank to facilitate the acquisition, storage, handling and distribution of well-characterized autopsy brain tissue and other materials to investigators. Due to a close relationship with the Emory Center for Neurodegenerative Disease, the Goizueta ADRC also has access to tissues and samples related to other neurodegenerative diseases as described below.

  • Frozen Tissue: Over 500 autopsy brains including AD, PD, tauopathy, Huntington's disease, other neurodegenerative diseases, and controls
  • Brain Biopsies: ~30 frozen specimens and ~50 paraffin blocks including AD, PD collected during pallidotomy surgery, tauopathy, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, and other diagnoses
  • Formalin Fixed Tissue: Over 400 cases of AD, PD, tauopathy, Huntington's disease, and Paraffin Blocks other neurodegenerative diseases, and controls
  • Paraformaldehyde-fixed, Cryopreserved Tissue: Over 550 cases of AD, PD, tauopathy, Huntington's disease, and Paraffin Blocks other neurodegenerative diseases, and controls

Biospecimen Bank

The Goizueta ADRC, Center for Neurodegenerative Disease, and the Emory Department of Neurology Department work together to maintain a large and rapidly expanding DNA Bank and Lymphoblast Repository. Plasma, Cerebrospinal Fluid, and serum are also stored. The biological samples are associated with well-characterized patients with dementia, movement disorders, sleep disorders, stroke, neuromuscular disorders and other nervous system diseases as well as healthy control subjects. Many different types of studies can be conducted using these samples, including genetic association and linkage studies, genotype/phenotype studies, analysis of clinical phenotype categorizations, and mRNA protein analysis studies.

The majority of Biospecimen Bank participants are patients treated by Emory Department of Neurology physicians. These patients have diagnoses of various memory and movement disorders, including Probable Alzheimer's Disease (AD), Frontotemporal Dementia (FTD) and Parkinson's Disease (PD), as well as diagnoses of Stroke, Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), and Restless Leg Syndrome (RLS). Additional participants in these depositories include community members with the aforementioned disorders, family members of participants with these disorders, and controls.

  • Buffy Coat Isolates and DNA Extracts from Buffy Coats: Over 7200 buffy coats and DNA isolates from patients with AD and other neurological diseases and control subjects enrolled in the Clinical Research in Neurology Registry
  • DNA Extracts from Autopsy Tissue: Over 300 cases of AD, other neurological diseases, and controls
  • Plasma Samples: Over 7400 samples from patients with AD and other neurological diseases and control subjects enrolled in the Clinical Research in Neurology Registry
  • Serum Samples: Over 1000 samples from patients with AD and other neurological diseases and control subjects enrolled in Clinical Research in Neurology Registry
  • Lymphoblast Cell Lines: Approximately 4200 lymphoblast cell lines derived from patients with AD and other neurological diseases and control subjects enrolled in the Clinical Research in Neurology Registry
  • Cerebrospinal Fluid Samples: In collaboration with the Emory Center for Neurodegenerative Disease, we have access to a growing collection of cerebral spinal fluid samples from over 170 patients with a variety of neurological diagnoses including Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease. These frozen samples and the associated neurobehavioral and other patient data records are a valuable resource and may be requested for appropriate research studies.